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Invergale.
    â€œHave you?” His green eyes seemed lit from within, a fanciful notion she must have imagined. “I thought you might have your man servant here waiting to gut me for daring to intrude on your slumber last eve.”
    â€œCertainly not.” She hoped to entice Iain Darroch to…court her, perhaps. She needed a very specific favor from him and it would require some time to broach such a delicate subject. “I have been curious about you.”
    â€œI’m glad to hear it.” He offered his arm with a kind of old world gallantry she had not expected. “Perhaps you will not mind if I ask you a few questions, as well.”
    â€œWe can take turns.” Looping her arm through his, she rested her fingers on his strong forearm. Warm muscle shifted under her touch. “But wherever will we walk? It will be fully dark any moment.”
    â€œI know an open path that moonlight always touches.” He gestured ahead, and she thought she could see a break in the trees. “May I show you?”
    When she hesitated, he stopped walking.
    â€œWould you like to bring your servants?” he offered, no doubt trying to put her at ease.
    â€œNo.” She had not forgotten the awkward sensation of seeing Iain when others did not. “I will follow you if it isn’t far.”
    â€œExcellent.” His teeth shone white in the dim light as he drew her deeper into the woods. “Then we can begin our game of satisfying one another’s curiosity. Ladies first.”
    â€œVery well.” She stepped gingerly over a gnarled root he pointed out, the long skirt of her walking costume more suited to the wide lanes of a city park than the treacherous paths of a Highland forest. “Can you explain why you feel a claim on Invergale when it was given to my husband’s family almost one hundred years ago?”
    He stiffened slightly beside her. But he continued to guide her unerringly through the gloom. The scent of the earth and dry leaves wafted up as they walked.
    â€œInvergale was wrongfully taken from my…family.” He reached to lift a low-hanging branch for her. “That was over a year after Culloden, in the summer of 1747.”
    She knew that many Highland clans had supported Charles Stuart’s long-ago claim to the throne in the Jacobite uprising. She’d also heard the rebels were put down harshly after their plans failed. They were stripped of their lands as punishment.
    â€œSo the viscount’s ancestors received the lands by order of the king.” Ahead, she could see an area where the trees thinned out and the moonlight filtered through.
    â€œI recognize no king,” he said mildly. “And it is my turn to ask a question.”
    His voice took on that musical quality, the lilting accent that made all of his words appealing. She stepped into the glade and a shaft of moonlight fell on her like a stage lamp at the Savoy Theatre.
    â€œBy all means.” She joined him in the silvery glow of the clearing. “Ask away.”
    He stepped closer, his expression serious. The scent of pine and clean, warm male made her heart race. This was the giddy feeling other debutantes whispered about during the Season before Lily’s marriage. For a moment, she thought Iain might kiss her again, an event that would surely bring her closer to that most delicate of favors she needed to ask.
    But then, he cupped her chin and tilted her face this way and that, studying her.
    â€œLily,” he said finally. “In this place sacred to your ancestors, you are bound to speak only the truth. Tell me now, are you an immortal
Sidhe?
”

Chapter Four
    The moonlight played tricks on her.
    She shook her head to clear it, Iain’s words incomprehensible even as she stood a hand’s span away.
    â€œExcuse me?” Dazed and not quite sure why, she felt an overwhelming urge to close the distance between them, to somehow step into the warmth